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New Home for Reimagining College Access

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The Reimagining College Access (RCA) initiative is a national effort to advance the use of high-quality performance assessments completed by secondary students for higher education admission, placement, and advising decisions. The approach is intended to increase college access by expanding and deepening information about secondary students’ preparedness for higher education while deepening high school education by focusing on meaningful and rigorous work.

The Learning Policy Institute (LPI), in collaboration with EdCounsel, launched Reimagining College Access (RCA) in 2017 as an incubation project with the goal of establishing a practice-informed research base and a national coalition of partners focused on integrating authentic evidence about students’ abilities from high school performance assessments into admissions processes.

Since its inception, the initiative has grown in scope and impact and is now entering a new phase that supports wider implementation within the field of high school and college admissions counselors. With the project reaching this new level, LPI and RCA partner National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) have agreed that administration and oversight of the project will transition to NACAC, whose sole focus is on college access and who has deep ties to both the K–12 and higher education sectors. NACAC has served an international college admissions counseling community for 85 years and is well positioned to carry this work forward through its extensive and well-established network. LPI will continue its engagement with RCA as a research partner.

Throughout RCA’s lifespan, NACAC has understood the immense potential for performance assessments to transform the transition to college into a more equity- and student-centered experience. They have worked diligently to bring college admission officers and school counselors to the table, educate their membership about performance assessments, and bridge the considerable gap between conversations about performance assessments and integrating them into the practice of college admission.

As more and more institutions of higher education have looked to broaden the artifacts they consider in informing admissions and student placement, NACAC has been a key member in the broad coalition of RCA partners that, together, have hosted dozens of national convenings and webinars and created a sound research base, informed by practice, that has significantly furthered the work of equitable college access.

For more information about NACAC or to sign up for future newsletters, please contact David Hawkins.